Chapter 406 (2/2)

Randidly straightened slowly, looking at Sydney, really looking at her. Her usual streaks of dyed hair were gone, leaving all of it a rich dark brown, that could be confused with black. Her eyes were light, a mix of grey and blue, cold as the glacier they seemed so intent on imitating. And yet…

Sydney hadn’t always been this cold. In the time after Randidly’s move in middle school, they started talking all the time, and by high school, they had been really close. When it came out they lived next to each other growing up, Randidly was bewildered, but the pictures showed Sydney as the correct one. Then in the months leading up to college, Sydney had sat Randidly down. Then she had told him the school she was applying to, and the acceptance rates.

After looking at him with her eyes, so warm then, she had said. “This has been….strangely fun. But… it can’t keep going. Good luck.”

Then her eyes cooled as she turned away and departed. Randidly had never in his life really wanted anything before that moment. He had been content to sit quietly, ignoring his mom and her boyfriends, drifting to and from school, just… letting life carry him forward. It wasn’t that he didn't care, it was just… he had never found anything worth caring about.

That changed that day. Sydney had given him a challenge and then left. He would not keep her waiting long. And yet, when he saw her that first day of class, freshman year…

Her eyes went wide, and she took an involuntary step backward, right there in the world history classroom, and said. “What did you come for? Did you follow me?!?”

Randidly froze. After a brief, awkward interlude, Sydney stormed out, and the professor coughed and said something very opaquely about boundaries in relationships that had Randidly burning. Then the tall, athletic-looking blonde man in the seat next to Randidly chuckled.

After casually leaning over, he whispered into Randidly’s ear. “Man, if I had a chance with that girl, I’d follow her around too.”

“That’s more than a little creepy,” Randidly replied, more shocked than anything else to be so... poorly received by Sydney. Hadn’t she encouraged him to try? Wasn’t this exactly what she wanted…?

Randidly had driven himself into the ground, trying to cram enough extracurriculars and volunteer work into his last year of high school to get into this school. The whole time, Randidly was thinking about Sydney, about how she cared enough about him to encourage him, even when the task set before him, when considering his history, was impossible.

Yet in that year Randidly had learned something about himself. Although he had drifted for a long time, that was due to a lack of direction, not a lack of spine. It was not easy, but he had made it.

The blonde man laughed and then offered Randidly his hand. “Yea well, only in private. My name’s Ace. Who are you, lady killer?”

Now, in the present, in the wake of the System, standing in a castle built on top of a fucking mall, it hit him in the gut to hear her use those same words in reaction to him, after so long apart. Was it really, just this….?

Randidly opened his mouth, then he closed it. Sighing, he shook his head. Then, he straightened, and this time, the person looking out at Sydney was not Randidly, but the Ghosthound, his eyes glowing emerald.

“...You’ve seen the notifications, I assume. We are launching an expedition to clear the Raid Dungeon. There is a 10 person limit on the party that goes in. As the leader of one of the Villages in the North… you can have one slot if you want it. You can come with us.”

Sydney’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Randidly recognized this mood of hers. It was most of what he had dealt with, in her reactions to him before Sydney began dating Ace before she was forced to be civil to him. Before she had been diagnosed with cancer, and her frosty exterior finally cracked.

“Ace will be coming,” Randidly offered, taking a calculated gamble. Immediately, the change in her face, the tightening at the corners of her mouth, informed him he had chosen incorrectly.

“I… have a question.” Sydney downed the rest of her drink, and straightened, her goblet of ice twisting into a glittering bracelet. “I think it’s a reasonable one. What qualifications do you have to lead this expedition, Mr. Ghosthound? Do you really have the strength to do so?”

Randidly opened his mouth to speak, then he closed it. Because he knew how stubborn she was too. And right now she was dealing with the Ghosthound. He gave her a sharp look. It was a show of good faith and support from Randidly to come and offer her a slot in the party to go into the Dungeon. Randidly didn’t doubt it would be dangerous, but that the rewards for passing it would be similarly phenomenal. And sure, there was the added benefit of seeing Sydney, but…

She never was very sentimental.

“Fine,” Randidly hissed, his eyes glowing even more brightly.